Goshawk Aviation has completed its first issuance of unsecured notes to institutional investors in the US market. The deal was launched as a US$200 million senior notes issuance. Market demand was close to US$300 million and the final issuance was US$231 million, split between five year and seven year tenors. The pricing of the transaction was completed at the end of June, immediately post the UK Brexit referendum. Proceeds from the Notes will be used for aircraft acquisitions and general corporate purposes.
The joint lead agents were Citibank, Natixis and HSBC Bank plc. Crédit Agricole CIB was a co-lead agent. O’Melveny & Myers LLP acted as Goshawk’s legal counsel while Greenberg Traurig Maher LLP acted as the investors’ legal counsel.
Anand Ramachandran, CFO of Goshawk, says: “We are pleased to have followed the recent closing of our $345m unsecured bank RCF with a successful debut unsecured capital markets issuance. This provides Goshawk with another diversified source of capital and this support from US institutional investors is a strong endorsement of the progress the company has made in less than 3 years.”
Goshawk was established in November 2013 as an aircraft leasing platform to focus on building an asset portfolio of young, new technology, in-production aircraft with a large and diversified asset-type and operator base. With support from its principal shareholders, Chow Tai Fook Enterprises Limited, NWS Holdings Limited and Investec Bank plc, the Goshawk portfolio has grown to 71 delivered aircraft since inception. Together with the planned aircraft in the pipeline, the total asset value of Goshawk is estimated at approximately USD4 billion.